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How do I manage color grading for my photos on my smartphone

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Add a tint to an iPhone photo

Key things

  • Mastering color gradation, especially with Lightroom, greatly improves image quality.
  • Vividness and Saturation allow you to perform basic color adjustments on smartphone photos.
  • You can also control hue and warmth in Apple Photos for more specific color adjustments.



Vibrance and Saturation are useful tools for making basic color-related adjustments to smartphone photos, and tweaking specific hues takes it a step further. However, to really elevate your photos, mastering color grading is key.


1 Using the My Native Smartphone photo editor to sort colors

Although Apple Photos doesn’t have the same color grading tools as apps like Lightroom, you can still adjust colors beyond vibrancy and saturation. To do this, control breath and temperature they are both important.

The temperature control allows you to adjust the colors on a scale from blue to yellow. My photography style leans towards film style photos and I like to create vintage images on my smartphone, so I prefer to add warmth (yellow) to my images. Sometimes I cool down the temperature (blue), like when I’m working with snow pictures.


The hue function allows you to adjust colors on a scale from green to magenta. Most of the time I like to add a green tint to my images as it helps me to perfect my style. I rarely move the slider towards the magenta shade, but you might want to if your style is different from mine or if you want to correct unwanted color casts.

2 Using Adobe Lightroom to color grade my photos

Although you have to pay $9.99 per month for Lightroom, I think it is the best photo editing app for smartphones and worth the money. One of the best Lightroom mobile tips I can give is to use color sorting wheels. Each is for one middle tones, emphasizesand shadows– plus a global one to change the overall appearance of the image.

I am very flexible with these color grading wheels and use them for almost all photo editing in the app. How I set the wheels depends on the picture and it will be yours too.


The image below was taken late in the afternoon on a winter day, so I added a healthy amount of green to the highlights, orange to the midtones, and blue to the shadows.

In the image below, which was taken on a snowy afternoon, I added some blue to the shadows. To balance it out, I added orange to the midtones and highlights, and some magenta to the overall image.


Sometimes I change things. In the image below, I added a lot of blue to the shadows and highlights (something I rarely do) and also made the midtones more orange.

In addition to changing the colors in each part of the image, you can also choose how you want to balance the colors. Additionally, you have the option to add brightness; I often do this when I want the sky to look brighter than it is. Lightroom has a blending tool that integrates everything nicely.

Download: Lightroom for iOS | Android (free, in-app purchases available)

3 Using Photoshop Express to color grade my photos

Photoshop Express does not have the same color sorting wheels as Lightroom. However, it has split toning— which Lightroom Classic used to be before it was replaced by color sorting wheels. Split toning is more difficult to master, but you can achieve excellent results.


When you use split toning, you will see two dots. You can control on the left shadows. On the right you can change the colors in yours emphasizes. In the image I’ve edited below, I’ve swapped them; as a result, there is more green in the shadows of the image.

It is very easy to exaggerate hue and saturation in split toning. For this reason, I recommend keeping the dots near the top or bottom of the chart. Once you have a basic idea of ​​how you want your image to look, you can move these dots around. To complete the image, move the slider above the split toning left or right to adjust the color balance.


Download: Photoshop Express for iOS | Android (free, in-app purchases available)

Color grading is one of the most powerful yet underrated ways to transform your photos, and learning how to master these tools will really make your images stand out. While I recommend using Lightroom for the full feature set, you can still make impressive edits in your phone’s native photo editor. After four years of experimenting with color grading, my advice is, dive in now – your photos will thank you!

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